Relative Affluence: Elite Perceptions of Inequality in Mexico

• In Event: Elites and Perceptions of Inequality and Poverty

Abstract

Despite a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches attempting to explain the mechanisms of production and reproduction behind contemporary inequalities, the role of perception and relative measures remains under-explored. Based on over 40 in-depth interviews with members of the Mexican elite, this paper examines how the dissonance between elite perception and measured economic status matters for the social construction of inequality. This unique empirical data reveals that elites experience ‘relative affluence’, a re-centering of the income distribution around their own income: despite showing concern about existing inequality, they feel only moderately well-off compared to their even wealthier peers, systematically underestimating their own position on the overall income distribution. This distorts elites’ perception of the majority’s wellbeing, threatening social cohesion and obstructing the implementation of effective policy to sustainably decrease inequality. Understanding elites as embedded in the ‘wealth bubbles’ of their particular sociality may help overcome inequality via de-segregation of (social) space.

Author

• Alice Krozer, University of Cambridge